Good morning. Let's all stand
together. We'll sing hymn number 283. 283. Oh, how sweet the glorious message
simple faith may claim. Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus
is the same. Still he loves to save the sinful,
heal the sick and lame. Cheer the mourner, call the tempest,
glory to His name. Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus,
it's the same. All may change, but Jesus never. Glory to His name. Glory to His name. Glory to His name. All may change, but Jesus never. Glory to His name. He who pardoned daring Peter,
never needs thou fear. He who came to faithless Thomas,
all thy doubt will clear. Love, disciple, on His bosom
let, Vince Thee still with love esteem. upon his breast. Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus
is the same. All may change, but Jesus never. Glory to his name. Glory to his name. Glory to his name. All may change, but Jesus never,
glory to His name. He who, mid the raging billows,
walked upon the sea, still can hush our wildest tempest as on
Galilee. He who wept and prayed in anguish
in Gethsemane Drinks with us each cup of trembling in our
agony Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus is the same. All may change, but Jesus never. Glory to His name. Glory to His name. Glory to His name. All may change, but Jesus never. Glory to His name. As of old He walked to me, us
with Him to abide. So through all life's way, He
walketh ever near our side. Soon again shall we be pulled
in haste, O Lord, today. But we'll still be the same,
Jesus, as He went away. Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus
is the same. All may change, but Jesus never. Glory to His name. Glory to His name. Glory to His name. ♪ All may change, but Jesus never
♪ Glory to his name Be seated, we'll sing hymn number 252. 252. Come, every soul, by sin oppressed,
there's mercy with the Lord, and He will surely give you rest
by trusting in His word. Only trust Him, only trust Him,
only trust Him now. He will save you, He will save
you, He will save you. For Jesus shed his precious blood,
rich blessings to bestow. Plunge now into the crimson flood
that washes white as snow. Only trust in, only trust in,
only trust in now. He will save you, He will save
you, He will save you now. Yes, Jesus is the truth, the
way, You are fully blessed. Only trust Him, only trust Him,
only trust Him now. He will save you, He will save
you, He will save you now. If you have your Bibles with
you this morning, I'd like to read from the book of Isaiah,
read the 53rd chapter. Isaiah 53. Who hath believed our report,
and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow
up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground.
He hath no form nor comeliness. And when we shall see him, there
is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected
of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we
hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised, and we
esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten
of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions,
he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace
was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep
have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way, and
the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed
and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth, He is brought
as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before the shearers
is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison
and from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? For he
was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression
of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the
wicked, and with the rich in his death, because he had done
no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased
the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief, when
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin. He shall see his seed,
he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall
prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of
his soul and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall
divide the spoiled with the strong, because he hath poured out his
soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, and he
bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. Our most high and heavenly precious
Father, We cry, Abba, Father. We cry,
hallowed be thy name. We bow in your presence. We're
so thankful that we can come into your presence through our
intercessor, your blessed son. Lord, we thank you that you chose a people to love and show
mercy to. A multitude that no man can number whom you showed
great mercy to, to bear our iniquities. Lord, we thank you for this word.
We thank you for all of your written word that's been preserved
for us. We ask that you would meet with us today and send your
spirit to be among us. Cause us to look into your word
and to hear your voice. We ask that you would be with
our dear brother Bruce as he stands before us. Cause him to preach the gospel
freely. Lord, if you don't meet with
us today, then this is all in vain. It's our heart's desire that
you would meet with us and cause us to worship you in spirit and
in truth. We pray for strength and mercy and grace unto those who are suffering,
weak and weary, brokenhearted, contrite spirits. Lord, we all
need your mercy. We all need your grace. And we
trust that your grace is sufficient, made new each day. Lord, again, we ask that you
would bless this service, ask that you would save the lost
among us, if it be thy will. Have mercy on whom you will.
We pray that that will be done for Christ's sake. Amen. We'll sing hymn number 292. A pilgrim was I, and a wandering
In the cold night of sin I did roam When Jesus, the kind shepherd,
found me and now I am on my way home. Surely goodness and mercy
shall follow me all the days, all the days of my life. Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me ♪ All the days, all the days of my life ♪ Verse two. ♪ He restoreth my soul when I'm
weary ♪ ♪ He giveth me strength day by day ♪ ♪ He leads me beside
the still waters ♪ ♪ He guards me each step of the way ♪ Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days, all the days of my life. Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me All the days, all the days of my life. Verse three. When I walk through
the dark, lonesome valley, my Savior will walk with me there. And safely His great hand will
lead me Two mansions he's gone to prepare Surely goodness and
mercy shall follow me all the days, all the days of my life. Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days, all the days of my life. And I shall dwell in the house
of the Lord forever. And I shall feast at the table
spread for me. Goodness and mercy shall follow
me all the days, all the days of my life. All the days, all the days of
my life. We'll stand together as we sing
the hymn of the day in the bulletin. The sinner's cause is often lost
with all his blame. While he regrets a less, Too
late that he implored no less. No sinner's cause is worse than
mine, but Christ, my head. divine appears before the throne
of God and pleads the merit of His blood. advocate can use is such as justice
can't refuse for while he pleads my soul shall live in awe the
praise to him I'll be Not all that unbelief can say
Shall fright my trembling soul away I'll tell my angels Be seated. We're pleased to have Brother
Bruce Crabtree and his bride with us this morning and this
evening, Lord willing. If you don't know Bruce, then
I don't know what to say. I think everybody here knows
him. Knows him well and considers you a dear and beloved friend,
brother. Can you come and bring the gospel
message for us? It's good to be here. It's good
to be back. Hasn't been long. When I saw you, it's good to
be back and it's good to worship with you. I want you to turn
your Bibles to Galatians chapter 4. I just have one verse of scripture
I want to read to you and it's found here in verse 21. Galatians
chapter 4 and verse 21. Galatians 4 and verse 21, tell
me, ye that desire to be under the law, do you not hear the
law? This is a question I want to
look at this morning in two parts. But to understand the question,
I think we have to remember what this church was going through.
They lived in a heathen nation. The Apostle Paul had come here
to them and preached the gospel of Christ to them. He called
in chapter 1, the gospel of the grace of Christ. Well, there
is no other gospel, is there? The gospel of the grace of Jesus
Christ. And he said, when I preach Christ
to you, I set him forth right before the eyes of your mind
as the Son of God in our humanity, crucified. You saw Him there
hanging up on Calvary's tree, bearing your sin, your load,
paying your payment in your stead. And He said, You received this
gospel. You believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. You trusted your
soul to Him to be saved by Him and Him alone. And the Apostle
Paul left this Galatian church to go on and preach to other
places. And these legalists, these self-righteous men, usually
from Jerusalem, came down and began to preach to this church
that Christ was not enough. His grace was not enough. That
we must have Christ. Christ must have died and risen
again. We can't be saved without Him.
But they said, He's not enough to save you. You must add something
to him, and usually it was to be circumcised and keep the Law
of Moses. And word got back to the Apostle
Paul that these men have left the Gospel that you preached
to them. And he wrote this letter back to them and he said, I'm
amazed! I marvel! that no sooner than
I left, these men came in and began to preach that what I preached
unto you wasn't the whole gospel, that you needed more than Jesus
Christ. And he says, you've left Him
that called you unto the grace of Christ. You know when men
leave the gospel, brothers and sisters, it ain't just the gospel
they leave, they leave Christ. There s only one way to worship
Him, and that s through His gospel. Only one way to serve God, and
that s through the gospel of His Son. And Paul said, You ve
left Him because you ve left the gospel of the grace of God
unto another gospel, which is not another, but there be some
that pervert the gospel. And he said, they bewitched you,
and they're wanting you to come back under the law, and add something
to Christ to be saved. And therefore, he comes here,
and he asks this question to them, and it's a very searching
question. Tell me, he said, and this is
the first part of the question, you who desire to be under the
law. My goodness, what an amazing
searching statement. Do you desire to be under the
law? Isn t that a searching question?
It s almost as searching as when God came and said, Adam, where
art thou? Well, he KNEW where he was, he
was hiding, but what a searching question! Where are you? Or when
God came to Cain who had just slew his brother and said, Where
s your brother? What a searching question. Do
you desire to be under the law? And what he's asking here really,
do you desire to be saved by your own works? Is there anybody
here this morning that desires to be saved by what you do or
by what you abstain from doing? Man, you shudder, don't you?
To lay a foundation To stand upon and to present yourself
to a holy God based upon your own merits, upon your own conduct? Man, I shudder, don't you, to
think that? What a searching question this
is. You desire to trust your own righteousness to make yourself
accepted in heaven? You trust your own heart? Tell
me. Answer this question, tell me,
he said. You desire to be justified before
God by your own goodness, by your own abilities, your own
wisdom, your own frames of mind? Man, what a question this is. Well, you know why he asked that?
Because they had absolutely found this in their hearts, a desire
to be saved by the works of the Lord. That's a searching question,
isn't it? You say, Bruce, why do you even ask this this morning?
Brothers and sisters, because there's multitudes of people.
There's multitudes of people this morning gathered in places
of worship just like this, and their desire is to earn their
way to heaven. That's all they know. Works for
salvation. works to make their self accepted
before God. Ask them their desires. Yes,
that's what they desire. Oh, I trust Christ, but he's
not enough. God expects me to do my part. God expects me to try. What is
your desire? Well, it's good sometimes just
to open up our hearts and get in there and search and see really
what I want, to see really what I desire, to see really how I
want to be saved. Tell me you have that desire
to be saved by the law. Here's the second part of that
question. The Apostle Paul said, Do you not hear the law? I think it's very interesting
the way he asked this question, the way he didn't ask the question.
He didn't say, don't you remember when you learned something of
the nature of the law? Don't you remember when the law
first came to you and exposed your sin? Don't you remember
what you thought about the law then, how you wanted to be delivered
from its curse and its condemning power? Don't you remember what
it was like? He doesn't say that. He brings
this into present tense. Do you not HEAR what the law
says to you RIGHT NOW? Sometimes people think, they
really believe this, it s among the Reformed Baptists, it s just
prominent among them, they think in some way or another when we're
called to Jesus Christ and to God by Him, and when we're given
faith to fully trust Him, we're regenerated, we're born again,
that somehow or another, the nature of the law changes towards
us. That what used to be really bad
sins, if we commit a sin now, the law says, well, that ain't
too bad. After all, you know, you have faith in Christ. After
all, you have a broken heart. After all, you ve repented, so
I don t look upon your sins as being so bad. Brothers and sisters,
just because we re in Jesus Christ does not change the NATURE of
the holy law. It doesn't look upon us as persons. It looks at sin. And where it
sees sin in anybody, it judges that sin and condemns that sin. Paul said, Don't you hear the
law right now, what it says? What is the duty of the law? To search out sin. And no matter
who it finds it in, a child of God or an ungodly person, it
looks upon that sin and judges that sin as it is. It's sin. Boy, when David sinned against
God and committed adultery with Yeshiva, did the law come and
say, well, he's a child of God, so I'll excuse that? No, it condemned
that. Every sinful motive, every thought
of foolishness, every hateful word, everything that we do,
the Law says that s sin, and it curses us! It curses us! Do you not hear the Law? The
Apostle Paul in Romans 7 made this wonderful statement about
the nature of the Law and the nature of His sin. Listen to
what he said. Was that which is good made death
unto me? God forbid, but sin, that it
might appear sin. Why did God give the law? To
expose sin. That it might appear for what
it really is, sin against God. That sin by the commandment might
become exceeding sinful. What does the law do? It comes.
This word appear, it means to shine, to enlighten. It shines
into the conscience. Paul said, I was dead without
the law once. I didn't know the nature of sin, how bad it was.
But the law appeared, it shined into my conscience. And he said,
I saw sin and myself then in a totally different light. I
saw my sin to be exceeding sinful. You know why, as a child of God,
you here this morning, and seems like the closer you walk with
the Lord, the more apprehension you have of His love and His
grace to you, the more exceeding sinful you see your sin. And
you know why that is? You see the law in its true nature. And it doesn't come to justify
you. It comes to point that sin out. Do you not hear the Law? Some say we come to Christ and
we are justified by faith in Christ, and then we turn back
to the Law to be sanctified. We turn back to the Law as a
rule of life. The Law comes to us and says,
ìNow donít you do this and donít you do that. Thatís wrong.î The
Law doesnít come to you and say, ìDonít do that.î The Law comes
to you and says, ìYou have done that.î The law doesn t come to
a man that s looking after a woman in lust and say, Don t do that.
That would be wrong. The law comes and says, You re
an adulterer. You just committed adultery.
The law don t excuse the sin of the believer. It don t look
and say, You ve got faith in Christ. You ve been given a new
heart. No, the law by the law is the
knowledge of sin. And when it's brought us to the
knowledge of sin, that's all it can do. It can't help us. It can't justify us. It can't
teach us how to be better persons. We must go elsewhere to find
that. Do you not share the law? I know all kinds of people in
the country where I'm from, part of the country that I'm from,
they do not share the law. They do not hear the law. They
have no idea what the nature of the law is. And when you tell
them you're not under it anymore in any sense or any fashion,
they can't understand that. How do you live? How do you know
how to live? It's important to know the nature of the law. But
I tell you what's the truth, brothers and sisters. When we
find out the nature of the law, we've got to find out the nature
of Jesus Christ as the Savior. Martin Luther and monks, he was
with a whole group of monks, and they went to live in a monastery.
That's what they did back in Martin Luther's day. And he said
we realized the necessity of getting out of the world. And
he said we would go there in those monasteries, and we would
study the nature of the law. And he said as we studied the
nature of the law, we began to realize more and more of its
holy nature, and we tried to live up to its standards. And
he said, we fasted ourselves half to death to try to subdue
the sin that was in us. And he said, we laid on cold
floors all night naked. We would sharpen stakes and sit
on them with our behind to afflict ourselves to try to subdue the
sin. And he said, the more we did,
the worse we got. We could not satisfy the nature
of the law. And he said he saw some of those
monks die in utter despair. He said they died worse than
open and profane sinners because he said they realized they were
dying under guilt and the condemnation of the law. And he said all we
did is study the nature of the law and we never did study the
nature of Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior who redeemed
sinners from that law. And he said, therefore we lived
in despair. And something else, you may have read this that Martin
Luther dealt with. He said, we hated God. We hated
God. We resented God. He said because
we realized by studying the nature of the law that God was demanding
of us more than we could provide. He was demanding perfection,
and we almost killed ourselves trying to render it, and yet
we could not. So he said there was this resentment
set up in our hearts. We must know the nature of the
law, that it condemns our sin, it exposes our sin, it shines
into our conscience. and makes us see the guilt of
our sin. But when it's done that, brothers
and sisters, that's all it can do. It's done its job when it
did that. There's three ways here in the
book of Galatians. The Apostle Paul tells us that
men seek to be saved from the law's damning, condemning power. Look at it here with me, look
in Galatians chapter 3 and look in verse 10. Galatians chapter
3 and verse 10, three ways men seek to be delivered by the works
from the guilt of this law. And the first one is by obeying
it. Look here what he says in verse
10, For as many as are of the works of the law are under the
curse. For it is written, Cursed is
everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them. Some people seek to be
saved, and what it comes down to It's not that people look
in the Word of God and see all the law's demands. It comes down
to this, my own opinion of what God demands. It comes down to
living after one's personal convictions. If I live up to my personal convictions,
I've fulfilled what the law demands of me. Nobody's ever did that. Nobody's
ever lived up to the demands of the law. You know what the law demands?
Our Lord Jesus said it in two statements. He said the law demands
this, love God with all your heart, with all your mind, all
your soul, all your strength. Love Him with your entire being. From the time you leave your
mother's womb to the time you draw your last breath, that's
what the law demands. People try to do that. My poor
dad was a freeway Baptist preacher, and I went to him after the Lord
saved me and began to teach me some things about the nature
of the law and the nature of salvation in Jesus Christ. And
he never did profess that he was a perfect man, but he always
said, I'm trying, son. I'm trying. I'm trying. Trying to what? Love God with all my heart. Everything
I do, I try to please Him in it. But that's what He was trusting
in. That's where His hope lied. In
that. I look over you this morning,
and some of you, bless your hearts, I've known you for a long, long
time. And you're honest. I could talk to you this morning,
and I could come to you and ask you this. Do you love God with
all your heart, soul, mind, and strength all the time? We love ourselves. Is that not
just being honest? We love ourselves. We love what
we want to do. We yield so easy. I wish I could love God with all
my heart, mind, soul, and strength. I wish I could love Him continually
and wholly, but let's be honest with it. Sin is mixed with everything
we do. When I would do good, evil is
present with me, and try your best, you cannot stop that. And
it makes you cry out, oh wretched man that I am. Oh Lord, give
me grace to love you, give me grace to trust you, to believe
you, to follow you. But one thing about it, I can't
love him as this law demands me to love him. And there's no
sense being dishonest about it, is there? Not the hearers of
the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall
be justified. I've never known but one man
that did it. Mother Teresa. She went into the Valgada camps
where the People were dying of the leprosy.
Exposed herself to that because she said she loved them and cared
for them. Maybe, maybe did. Maybe did. The law demands more than that. The founder of JCPenney's give
90% of all the profit he made from his sales. The law demands
more than that. From our cradle to the grave,
the law demands perfect, wholehearted love and obedience to God in
all that He requires. Secondly, people seek to be saved
this way. Some able person outside of ourselves
must render perfect obedience to that law. in our place, in
our stead, and in our room. Look here at chapter 4, and look
in verse 4. When the fullness of time was
come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the
law. Brothers and sisters, I tell
you this morning that it was necessary for a man to fulfill
the law of God. Jesus Christ could not have fulfilled
the Law of God and stayed in Heaven to do it. By man, sin
came into this world, and through disobedience man failed, and
through ANOTHER man we must live. Through ANOTHER man we must be
saved. Jesus Christ had to be born under
His own Law. Why? To fulfill it, to honor
it, Show you another passage, a very familiar passage over
in Isaiah chapter 42, close to where Houston was reading. Very
familiar passage to you who read your Bibles. In Isaiah chapter
42, we know who this is speaking of. Look here in verse one to
verse three. Isaiah chapter 42, behold my
servant, in whom I uphold, mine elect, and whom my soul delighteth. I have put my spirit upon him,
he shall bring forth judgment, justice to the Gentiles. He shall
not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the
street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax
shall he not quench. He shall bring forth judgment
unto truth. In verse 4, he shall not fail,
nor be discouraged. till he have set judgment in
the earth, and the island shall wait for his law. What did Christ
do when He came? Why did the Father say, He s
my delight? The Father looked down upon Him
different times, remember that, and said, This is my Son. I am
so well pleased in You. I just love You for what You
ve done. What did He do? Well, look in
verse 21. The Lord, the Father, is well-pleased
for His, Christ's, righteousness' sake. He will MAGNIFY the law,
and He will MAKE it honorable. He come as a man born of a woman,
submitted to all the demands of God's law, and He kept them
all to every jot and every tittle. He said, Father, I come. Thy
law is in my heart. I love it. You and I are born in sin and
rebelled against God s law all of our life. Jesus Christ was
born of a woman, a fallen woman, but He had no sin and obeyed
God in every jot and every tittle. You know something? The life
of Jesus Christ is just as important and just as marvelous as His
death is. We should talk more about that,
I guess, shouldn t we? You know one of the things that
was absent, you know something that was absent in the heart
of Christ, in the life of Jesus Christ? You never saw it there
because it wasn't there. A cold heart. Cindy and I were coming over
this morning, we got out of the car to do some stuff, my hands
got cold, and she said, boy, your hands are cold, and I thought
to myself, you're the feel of my heart. Your heart ever get
cold towards God? cold in prayer, cold reading
His Word, cold in meditation, cold when you come here to worship.
You just want to go to sleep. Christ never was that way. He
said, the zeal of your house, the zeal for your house has eaten
me up. Twelve years of age, He said,
I've got to be about my Father's business. I'm burning to do the
will of my Father. everything, He magnified the
Law of God and made it honorable in His life. Why did He do that? Because He had to be a Lamb without
spot and without any blemish. And boy, when those priests there
in Exodus chapter 12 wanted to make sure that they had a Lamb
without any spot or blemish, they searched Him. They'd pull
that wool back to find any blemish or any blister in that lamb. And when Jesus Christ came into
this world, He was tried. Men tried Him. His own disciples
tried Him. Satan tried Him. God the Father
tried Him. He was a tried stone. But when
they tried Him, they found Him to be perfect. Has your life upon this earth
been perfect and complete? No, but His was. Bless God, the
Lamb of God had no sin of his own, did he? And that was required
of us. And he said, my father, I'll
do it on their behalf. I'll come and I'll honor you
in my life. My motives, my thoughts, my words,
you can look upon them and examine them. And my father says, son,
I have. And oh, I love you. I love you. You're what man's supposed to
be. and could never be. You're my son. But boy, he didn't
stop there and look at chapter 3. Look at chapter 3 and verse
13 of Galatians. Chapter 3 and verse 13, Christ
hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse
for us. For it is written, Cursed is
every one that hangeth on a tree. Don't you ever wonder? Well,
you don't wonder, you know. If he lived a perfect life, and
he did, why did he have to die the death of a transgressor?
He died the death of a sinner. He obeyed the law in every jot
and tittle. Here he is hanging as a criminal,
that offender. And why did He do that? Well,
He lived your life for you, child of God, and now He's dying your
death for you. He was made sin for you upon
the cross of Calvary, so you might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. He was made a curse to redeem
you from the curse. He died to give you the breath
of eternal life. Oh, what a substitute He was!
He took our sins, made them His own, CALLED them His own, and
incurred the awful curse of God's law to deliver us from the penalty
of that law. You know men seek to be saved
this way? Tell me you desire to be saved by the law. Don't
you hear the law? It's condemning you. I don't
want to be saved by the law. I don't want nothing to do with
the law. I'll be honest with you. I want everything to do
with Jesus Christ. I want His birth as my birth. I want His childhood as my childhood. When He starts His ministry and
He preaches, I want that to be my life. When He lifts up the
head on Calvary and said, My Father, it's finished. I want
that to be mine. It's finished. My salvation and
your salvation must not be do, do, do. It must be done. Why? He finished it. He finished
it. Ain't it amazing that the law
was satisfied when Christ died? God saw the travail of his soul.
He said, I'm satisfied. The law said, I'm satisfied.
The law took that old bloody sword, as it were, and put it
back in his sheath. He said, I'll never curse him again. He
has satisfied me. His merit, his blood, his works
satisfied me. God the Father is satisfied.
Is he not? What did he say? My son, come
up here and sit down at my right hand. The work is finished. I'm
satisfied. And the Lord Jesus sat down and
said, My father, I'm just going to rest here because I've finished
the work. I'm satisfied. You think angels are satisfied?
You think those in heaven aren't satisfied? Everybody's satisfied,
Paul said, but you Galatians. Everybody's resting in the finished
work of Jesus Christ, but you Galatians. And you have this
desire in your heart to add something. To add just a little something
of your own. Well, Bruce, does it hurt to
add something? I mean, just the least thing?
Can I add just a hair's breadth? I want something! Now look here what Paul says in chapter
5. Look what he says in chapter 5, in
verse 1. Stand fast, therefore, in the
liberty wherewith Christ has made us free by His own doing
in dying and resurrection. Don't be entangled again with
a yoke of bondage. Behold, I, Paul, say unto you,
that if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify to every man that
is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole lot. Circumcision wasn't very much,
didn't take but just a few minutes or so. But Paul said if you add
circumcision to Jesus Christ, you add baptism to Jesus Christ,
you add anything of your own to Jesus Christ, He shall profit
you nothing. He won't give you any grace.
He won't give you one drop of blood to wash your sins away.
He won't speak one word on the Father's behalf there in heaven.
He won't be an advocate for you. He will profit you a big fat
zero. It'll be as though there never
was a Christ. We must be saved by Jesus Christ
alone or we'll be lost forever. There is no other way. and it
s Christ alone. Stand FAST in this liberty wherewith
Christ has made you free. But it s hard to stand there,
isn t it? It s hard to stand there in Christ alone. We re
always, John Bunyan said, I have this miserable abomination in
my heart, leaning towards WORKS for salvation, leaning towards
my prayers, leaning towards my preaching, leaning towards my
Bible reading. Leaning away from Christ, and
he said, I hate myself because of it. It's difficult to stand
fast in Christ alone. I'm seeking to be saved, brothers
and sisters, one way, by one man, this God man. I'm seeking to be saved by his
merits. And I'm seeking that alone, alone. The third way, look at this,
men seek salvation this way. In chapter 2, I guess this goes
along so much with the point where they seek salvation
by Christ, but look here in chapter 2 and verse 19. For I, through the law, am dead
to the law, that I might live unto God. That's a strange statement,
isn't it? I, through the law, and what
he's saying here, this law has shined into my conscience. It's shined into my very heart,
and it's exposed what's there. I had not known law, the sin,
but by the law. When the commandment came, sin
revived. And Paul said, I died. He died
to what? Self-salvation. He died to self-salvation. I, through the knowledge of this
law, have died to the law. I can't keep it. All it does
is condemn me. I'm not trying to be accepted
by keeping it anymore. I'm dead to that. I'm dead to
the law. Why? That I might live to God. That I might live to God. Some
people are trying their best to save themselves and they're
dead to God. Some people say, I can't do it
anymore. I'm trusting in Christ and they live. Either under this
law and cursed or you're dead to this law. And you say, I have
nothing to do with it. It has nothing to do with me.
I'm dead to it. Look what he says in verse 21.
I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live,
I live by faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself
for me. Dead to the law. Are you dead
to self-salvation? Are you still trying to do something
to save yourself? We talk about trusting Christ.
The most difficult thing a man can do is bring his heart to
Christ and fully trust Christ with it. We're always wanting to do something,
and we have to be brought to the end of ourselves until we
trust Jesus Christ. We find these physicians, don't
we? We trust all these other physicians. We spend all we have. It's only when we come to the
end of ourselves that we cast our poor souls upon him to be
saved by him. Dying to self-salvation and trusting
our salvation to somebody else. A poor sinner will never love
the law of God. He'll never delight in the law
of God until he sees himself absolutely free from it. I'm
not here preaching to you this morning that we hate God's law.
I'm preaching to you that you can only love it if you're dead
to it. You can only delight in the law of God when you see it
in the hands of Jesus Christ fulfilled. Then you say, oh,
how I love this law. Love God with all the heart.
Oh, I love that. Love your neighbor as yourself.
That's wonderful. Then you say, Lord, give me grace
to love you. Lord, thank you, our Father,
our gracious Father in heaven. Thank you for delivering us,
Lord Jesus, from the curse of this law, your holy law, your
good law. Thank you for representing us
so well before the court of heaven. And we seek salvation. We seek
no other way of life or righteousness or forgiveness of our sins. Lord
Jesus, we seek it all through you. And when we do, then we
see your smiling face, even the smiling face of the eternal God,
looking upon us and treating us as if we were his only begotten
son, so righteous, so accepted in the beloved. Thank you for
this, dear people. Thank you for their kindness
and their attention. And Lord, I pray, O our Father, I pray
that you'll open some poor burdened heart here this morning to let
them see themselves complete in Christ. And Lord, we don't
believe for a minute that when you give us faith to believe
in you alone, that we'll go out and live a life that's contrary
to you, to bring shame upon you, upon your church. Bless this dear people, bless
their dear pastor and his wife. Bless them for your glory, Lord,
we ask. In Christ our Lord's name, amen. Houston. Thank you, brother. Let's stand
together and we'll sing hymn number 205. Bruce, if you would, at the end
of it, you go up there to the foyer. Thank you. M number 205. Free from the low, happy condition,
Jesus hath bled and there is remission. Cursed by the low
and dead by the fall, grace hath redeemed us once for all. Christ now are we free there's no condemnation
jesus provides a perfect salvation come unto me oh hear his sweet
call come and he saves us Children of God, O glorious calling, Surely His grace will keep us
from falling, Passing from death to life at His call. Blessed salvation! We're dismissed. We'll meet again this evening
at 6 o'clock. Lord willing.